


Old Friend

by melo



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-29
Updated: 2013-01-29
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melo/pseuds/melo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik knows what death looks like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ.
> 
> For [this](http://1stclass-kink.livejournal.com/7315.html?thread=12697491#t12697491) prompt at 1stclass_kink

Erik knows what death looks like. He’s seen it often enough; dealt it more than once.   
  
Death is rain and mud. Death is clouds and thick plumes of smoke, an unending fall of ash like acidic snow, each flake a burn upon still living skin. It is gaunt and skeletal, selfish and unforgiving with hands that reach out to tear apart, to claw to shreds. It is something reduced to a base nature that remembers nothing else.   
  
Death is dark opulence juxtaposed with minimalist white. It is a gentleman that dines with fine instruments of steel and enjoys dinner with a show. Death speaks smoothly, offers sugared words and fond praise; all while looking straight on through, eyes cold and finger careless on the trigger.   
  
Death is an iron vice, a sin of bitter satisfaction. It’s found in alleyways under cover of dark, in smoke choked lounges of ill repute. It’s found in exile, hiding amongst rotted wood and sour drink, and under vaulted ceilings crammed with stolen wealth.   
  
Death is all those things, but even so, death is constant, familiar, and Erik’s oldest friend. It was the heavy blanket that cloaked his shoulders every night in every cell, and it was the weight in his pocket, his silent companion through all his travels.   
  
Still, death has no business here. Not on this beach of fine white sand. Not when the sun burns bright and the wind is fresh and new. Death has no place where the tide laps up against the horizon, where blue sky meets blue water, blue upon blue.  
  
Erik knows what death looks like, and it is ugly, so he doesn’t know how he can see it now spilling red and warm across his fingers, burbling up in a shining stream.  
  
He presses his hands down on that soft neck, so pale and dear, and wills the flesh to obey as the blood’s iron does not. He imagines skin knitting back together like flower petals furling in the setting sun. He imagines the rise of an unmoving chest, the sweet gasp of breath and the fond curl of that voice chiding Erik for his needless fear.   
  
He imagines it, but that’s never been enough. Erik looks into eyes, blue upon blue, and what he sees is familiar when it shouldn’t be.  
  
“I’m not alone,” Erik says, but Charles does not agree.


End file.
